Dune: Part Three Turns Chani's Marriage to Paul Into a Divorce Story
- Villeneuve has called Dune: Part Three a divorce movie, a premise with no counterpart in Frank Herbert's 1969 novel Dune Messiah, and the film opens December 18.
- In the novel Chani stays beside Paul and dies giving birth to the twins Leto II and Ghanima, but the film has her estranged from Paul and central to a mystery inside the conspiracy.
- Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke are cast as teenage Leto II and Ghanima, although the twins are newborns at the end of Messiah, so the film either moves their birth or borrows from Children of Dune.
- The film takes place 17 years after Part Two, and Paul has ruled as Emperor for that stretch, with Jason Momoa returning as the ghola Hayt and Florence Pugh as Irulan.
- Book readers have objected to the Chani changes since Part Two, and the divorce framing renewed that complaint this week, according to the article.